Austerity measures in the UK

After watching the BBC Breakfast News this morning, and seeing people being asked to choose services would be cut/funding reduced, I got to thinking - given our huge debt (£180 billion or whatever it is) - what percentage of funding would have to be cut across the board if the decision was taken not to ring-fence certain services. Ie, if they said £6b has to be saved in 2010, we are going to reduce funding to every single service by x%.

25% cut across the board should clear it up in a year but then it would make loads unemployed who'd then need benefits & wouldn't pay income tax - so you'd have to increase it each year until there was nothing left coming in

They should go into every regional development agency and ask them to produce one single example of a tangible useful thing they've ever done. Despite the sqillions of pounds poured into their coffers, they won't be able too. Especially when pointed out that 'having a meeting' and 'going for lunch' don't count.

Sack the ****ing lot of them. No redundancy packages. Just boot the useless feckers out.

And the same could be said of the Trident programme or Afghanistan or a multitude other other commitments. The point being - why are they saying some services will be cut - isn't it fairer to reduce funding across the board then at least the cuts will have a fair and equal effect on everyone.

CaptJon - I'd be interested to see if that figure included public sector jobs? Or genuine outward investment from private business? I bet I know the answer to that one already

But... in the interests of fairness and balance I shall rephrase it to include only those i have personal experience with. Ahem....

They should go into the NORTH WEST regional development agency and ask them to produce one single example of a tangible useful thing they've ever done. Despite the sqillions of pounds poured into their coffers, they won't be able too. Especially when pointed out that 'having a meeting' and 'going for lunch' don't count.

Sack the ****ing lot of them. No redundancy packages. Just boot the useless feckers out.

So - let's say you find yourself in a situation at home where you need to cut costs
Would you cut the kids food bill the same amount as - say - your Sky subsciption?
Or would you decide that some things can't be cut so others will have to be cut more?

Didn't we vote for a government to govern??? I didn't realise I was voting for Mrs Miggins* down the road to decide what stays and what goes in terms of public spending/services. The whole thing's a bloody gimmick so they can turn round and say 'its not our fault, you brought it on yourselves' when it all goes tits up big style.

There has been all the talk by the government and the media of necessary cuts in services and how life is going to change for everyone (etc) and yet there has hardly been any mention given to the banks who got us into the mess in the first place. They had their multi billion £ bailout from the taxpayers and yet are still continueing to do much of the same shit they were doing pre-financial crisis, the bonus culture never went away, casino like trading is back and they are still not lending to the sectors which actually help create wealth and employment in the wider economy. It seems a welfare safety net and socialism is OK for those in the City yet it is austerity and free markets for the rest.

Wifey came home from work yesterday with news of how education is to be changed, I might be encouraging her to get a new job and anyone considering teaching as a career might be wise to leave it a year or so!

The debt is not £180 bn, that is the deficit i.e. just the overspend in excess of receipts in 2009, the figure is actually around £160 billion. Stated debt is £950 bn but this does not include funding for National Rail, future obligations under PFI or future pension obligations of civil servants. As the deficit will take a long time to cut the debt will still rise in the coming years.

The rationale for targeted cuts versus across the board expenditure is based on Canada's experience in the 90s. They found the latter was less popular and that more "good" expenditure was cut than if you adopted the former. There is a article by a director of the Adam Smith Institute, a free market think tank, explaining what the government appears to be getting right and what is wrong here, as an analysis piece on Convserative Home.

easy instead of cutting 25% of cost, increase the taxes by 25%, how once again easy
Tax golden parachute at 40%
Tax bank/traders bonus at at least 50%
Tax on the stck market of 0.001 % for each exchange.

We could scrap the arts council for a start and just get them all out on the streets busking for funding.

Obviously you are aware that creative arts and especially the music industry is one of our biggest exports?

The 'creative industries' are supposedly a sizeable chunk of our exports. But what arts funding people keep very quiet about, is that that 99.999% of that is commercial music companies, advertising, computer games and film. It has bugger all to do with anything the arts council or other arts funders have ever gone near. In my experience, there is pretty minimal crossover between the two.

I don't think the arts council is useless, as art, performance etc. have an intrinsic value in themselves, and generally make the country a nicer place to live. I've worked on Arts Council funded projects myself. But to suggest that it is in any way linked to revenue generating creative industries is just rubbish that people come up with to justify funding bids.

Juan: "easy instead of cutting 25% of cost, increase the taxes by 25%, how once again easy
Tax golden parachute at 40%
Tax bank/traders bonus at at least 50%
Tax on the stck market of 0.001 % for each exchange."

You're out of touch.

Golden Parachutes for high earners are already taxed at 50%
Bonuses are already taxed at 50%
Stock market trades are already taxed at 0.5% on the trade and 18% on the capital gain.

TBH she bounced in from work and launched straight into it, I didn't really tune in until I heard the words "they're getting rid of the GTC" which seems rather extreme. Up to that I'd only heard blah blah blah TBH. Some of the new diplomas apparently will go (think any that are not in an academic subject) and the new primary curriculum, which wifey thinks is a bit stupid as the preparation for that is all in place apparently ie been paid for already, will now need a replacement curriculum!

Wifey works in HE on teacher training, so to some extent she's looking ahead to what impact changes will have on her courses and numbers of recruits rather than what will happen in schools from September.

juan - we already have a tax rate of 50% on earnings over £150K so most of the egregious bank bonuses will be taxed at 50%, last year's were effectively taxed at considerably more than this about 60% I think. We already have a tax on shares traded on the stock exchange of 0.5% and golden parachutes are likewise taxed if they are contractual. (Sorry did not refresh before posting).

mf - the lacking of growing world economy does not alter the "best" mechanism for making cuts, it does however increase the risk of such cuts forcing the economy into another recession. This has to balanced against the risk of debt spiral if we don't cut doing the same.

Flat tax rate with a 10k or so zero rated band. Tax avoidance is too easy, especially for people who don't need their income for immediate living expenses.

I wonder how much could be save if all non essential public sector workers were sat at home on full pay, or a proportion of full pay for particularly highly paid, for a year, but with no benefits or perks- no cars, no pension, no life insurance etc. Repatriate most of the armed forces, mothball what buildings and equipment that could safely and quickly be temporarily decommissioned. A huge number of people off work for that period would surely stimulate the economy through boredom spending, but at the same time, must save a lot of money.

I know it sounds silly, and would be impractical, but would something along those lines help?